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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27989421">Five Hundred Twenty-Five Thousand Six Hundred Minutes (Times Four)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/lettersfromnowhere/pseuds/lettersfromnowhere'>lettersfromnowhere</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Avatar: The Last Airbender</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Secret Santa Exchange, Theater Nerd Zuko (Avatar)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 18:01:22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,715</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27989421</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/lettersfromnowhere/pseuds/lettersfromnowhere</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>One theater nerd, one overachieving go-getter, and four unforgettable years. (Or: everything's better with theater kids.)</p><p>A Secret Santa exchange gift.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Katara/Zuko (Avatar)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>65</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. 9</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/sofileall/gifts">sofileall</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Same deal as the my other Secret Santa gift, updating daily-ish. This was going to be a long oneshot, but I was too impatient, so now each year of high school is a chapter. </p><p>For the incomparable @sofileall, without whom I would never have fallen in love with this fandom the way I did. Each chapter covers one year of high school, divided into halves by semester that are based on a list of nine showtunes that Sofi loves which I sneakily had her send me. (Or...not sneakily. I'm not slick.)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>
    <strong>i. Waiting For Life</strong>
  </em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>Zuko doesn’t know her, at first. Later, he’ll wonder how that was possible – and not purely for sentimental reasons, because Katara is freaking <em>everywhere. </em>But the shy freshman who turns up at the signups for the fall musical has no idea who the girl smiling on the student council campaign posters plastered all over the theater walls is. <em>Vote Katara For Freshman Treasurer, </em>they all say; each one is emblazoned with a different pun, all of them unbearably cheesy and punctuated with exclamation points – “it just makes cents!”, “<em>cash in </em>your vote for excellence!”, “stop on a dime and vote!”. Each bears the image of the same girl in different outfits, poses, hairstyles.</p><p> </p><p>It’s a <em>lot </em>for a girl running uncontested for a position no one in their right mind would want, and Zuko finds himself studying her as he stands in the interminable line of would-be thespians waiting to sign up to audition or join the stage crew. (Auditions will take place next week although, since he’s signing up for crew, Zuko doesn’t care.) She’s pretty, that’s for sure – brown skin, brown hair, unmistakably sincere smile. She wears a different shade of blue in every photo, and he wonders how he hasn’t seen her before. Katara seems like she’d be kind of hard to miss.</p><p> </p><p>He can’t exactly say that he <em>knows  </em>Katara, after that absolutely fascinating hour of staring at her posters on the auditorium walls until he could recreate them in his sleep, but he feels a little bit like he does. Enough so that he feels…weirdly protective of the posters that are the only way he knows her. He’s not the type to go around trying to make the world a better place or anything – he’ll leave that to Student Council kids like Katara – but he still stops when he sees that the blue packing tape holding up the last taped corner of one of Katara’s posters in the hallway is coming loose. It’s going to fall if no one attends to it, and he doesn’t really understand why he feels the need not to let that happen. Regardless, he stops in front of the poster, and students pass him by with nary a backwards glance on their way to class. He examines the tape, sees that it’s tacky, and discreetly tears off a corner of the overabundant tape on the poster of a candidate for junior class vice-president to stick it up.</p><p> </p><p>He barely turns at a tap on the shoulder.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, what are you doing to my poster?”</p><p> </p><p>Zuko wishes he hadn’t turned.</p><p> </p><p>Katara stands in front of him – he doesn’t have to know her to <em>know </em>when he’s spent as much time studying her posters (he hopes she never finds that out – it sounds hopelessly creepy, now that he thinks about it) as he has. “It was falling!” he blurts out, half-frantic. “Because, uh…the tape. And I, um.” He pushes the tape square stolen from the junior girl’s poster against the wall so forcefully that he nearly jams his wrist, which probably speaks volumes about his upper body strength. “I didn’t have any, so I, uh, I stole some, from, uh…” he reads the poster whose tape he stole. “Jun.”</p><p> </p><p>When Zuko finally finishes and turns back to her, Katara’s wearing the kind of baffled expression that lets him know that she has exactly no idea what he just said.</p><p> </p><p>“Stopped your poster from falling.” She’s even prettier in person and it’s making Zuko’s head hurt. “Sorry. I’ll go.”</p><p> </p><p>“Wait, no.” Katara reaches for Zuko’s wrist just as he’s about to make off to class and pretend that this never happened. With her free hand, she plays with a lock of her hair. “Um…thank you.”</p><p> </p><p>He stops and inclines his head. “Hm?”</p><p> </p><p>“Thank you,” she says, a little less cautiously. “For…uh, saving my poster.”</p><p> </p><p>He shrugs. “You’re welcome. Hope you win.”</p><p> </p><p>“I’m running uncontested,” she says with a faint smile. “But, uh…thanks.”</p><p> </p><p>That’s all she manages to get out before the bell calls them back to class, but it’s enough to leave Zuko in a daze for a good few hours.</p><p> </p><p>He can’t say he’s surprised when she shows up to the auditions he’s not supposed to be at but, given that his other after-school options are “go home” and “do homework on time,” has opted to crash anyway. But he still nearly falls out of his stiff-backed theater seat (they’re the kind covered with fake velvet that’s been so battered by the sun and overuse that it barely has any color left in it) when she waves at him from across the auditorium.</p><p> </p><p>**</p><p> </p><p>Zuko really shouldn’t be surprised that Katara is a Kristin Chenoweth soundalike.</p><p> </p><p>He still is.</p><p> </p><p>**</p><p>Zuko really shouldn’t be surprised that Katara waves to him whenever he enters the auditorium for rehearsal. (He doesn’t have to be there, but again, it’s that or home or homework and anything beginning with the word “home” is unacceptable after school.) She’s a nice person. It’s what she does.</p><p> </p><p>He still is.</p><p> </p><p>**</p><p>Zuko should not be surprised when Katara graduates from waving to actual, verbal greetings. He also shouldn’t be surprised that he can barely muster any response at all when she does, because he’s never really been what one would call a wordsmith.</p><p><br/>He still is.</p><p> </p><p>**</p><p>Zuko should not be surprised anymore at the irritating fluttering sensation in his stomach whenever Katara opens her mouth, looks at him…well, just about <em>anything</em>. After attending nearly every rehearsal of Boiling Rock High School’s production of <em>Into the Woods </em>and watching the last several from the booth, unsure if his vision is swimming because he’s been staring into the spotlights he operates for hours or because of <em>her, </em>it’s hard not to notice.</p><p><br/>He still is, though, and it’s getting pretty annoying. Twice, the sound guy – a sophomore named Haru – has had to nudge him midway through “On the Steps of the Palace” (Katara’s big solo – it’s a comedic number, and also probably the best part of the show, and also probably the worst for Zuko’s poor, addled brain) to remind him to move the spotlight appropriately.</p><p> </p><p>**</p><p> </p><p>They’ve still barely spoken one-on-one by the November premiere of the show, but Katara still runs to the booth, holding up the skirt of her obscenely heavy brocade dress so she won’t trip over it, as soon as the curtain call is over. She practically bowls Zuko over as she runs to embrace him, completely bypassing a very confused Haru, and his hand catches a few of the switches on the control panel as he falls forwards.</p><p><br/>An unholy shriek sounds from the stage and Zuko grimaces. He’s probably tripped the spotlight on and blinded whatever poor, hapless cast member is still out on the stage. “Oh, goodness, sorry!” Katara cries, releasing him and glancing up at the stage. Her eyes widen and she bites her lip, beautiful even in distress, apparently. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t think-“</p><p> </p><p>“It’s okay.” Zuko shoves his hands in his pockets. “Y’know. All good. Not your fault.”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, but it is!” Katara protests, examining the board. “How do you turn it off?”</p><p> </p><p>He isn’t sure why, but Zuko feels with great clarity that this is his capital-m Moment. He does not break eye contact with Katara as he flips the appropriate switch without even looking; the theater darkens behind them, leaving on only the dim lights up in the booth, and he drinks in her appreciative expression with far too much pleasure.</p><p> </p><p>It is just about the most romantic moment of Zuko Yamato’s fourteen-year life.</p><p>
  
  
</p><p>
  <em>
    <strong>ii. All I’ve Ever Known </strong>
  </em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>Katara has a secret.</p><p> </p><p>It’s not a scandalous one, not the kind that would have her stripped of her place on the student council or subjected to all manner of rumors if it got out. It’s the kind of secret even more shameful than that, because it’s the kind of secret with the power to shatter the illusion Katara has spent four months building up.</p><p> </p><p>And the secret? <br/><br/>Precocious Katara – busy, overachieving, student-council-officer, straight-A student Katara – is <em>lonely. </em></p><p>
  
</p><p>Sure, she has friends. She’s had the same friends for years: her brother Sokka, their neighbor Aang and his best friend Toph, and, more recently, Suki. She’s a junior, in Sokka’s grade, and already the captain of the volleyball team, and Katara’s pretty sure that she’s only hanging out with their group of misfit freshmen because she and Sokka have extremely obvious crushes on each other. No matter – it’s always good to have someone new around.</p><p> </p><p>Because that is the issue:</p><p> </p><p>Katara knows everyone, and she’s not popular but everybody <em>knows </em>her. But, still, she is lonely.</p><p> </p><p>Still, she doesn’t feel like anyone <em>gets </em>it – how different she is now, how much she’s grown up. She’s in that awkward place she’s only ever read about in books, the one where nothing makes sense and no one <em>gets </em>her anymore and her legs are awkwardly long and silent, brooding boys in the sound booth do stupid, annoying things to her heart. It’s the awkward phase she thought she’d skipped by default because she’s <em>always </em>been awkward, her passion and idealism as ungainly as her limbs. She’s always been the kind of girl who people would laugh at if she weren’t so nice that they’d feel bad – isn’t that what an awkward phase is?</p><p> </p><p>No, she’s realizing. No, she is not.</p><p><br/>And she is lonely, here in this place she’s too scared to tell anyone that she’s reached. So she does the natural thing.</p><p> </p><p>She joins things.</p><p> </p><p>She joins the Student Council, thinking she’ll meet some like-minded friends; instead she does all of the work and the rest of the officers – kids who probably aspire to be senators or something – coast by, bolstering their reputations with her hard work. She hates it, but she does the work anyway – of course she does. They’re depending on her. Without <em>someone </em>to do the work, events won’t be paid for, budgets not filed, spirit weeks not planned, fundraisers not run. It’s not exactly doing anything for the deficiency of her social life, though.</p><p> </p><p>She joins theater for the same reason but that, too, backfires. The seniors angry that she was chosen over them for one of the leads did everything they could to ensure that. She’d had high hopes for the sweet, shy, slightly broody boy who she’d caught taping up her falling poster one day in the hallways, but she hasn’t managed to talk to him much – he’s <em>so </em>shy. The only friend she’s made is a girl in the ensemble named Ty Lee, who she’s pretty sure is the cheer captain as a sophomore and is <em>far </em>too good a dancer for the chorus line of a high school production. And even that one is a struggle, because Ty Lee’s other friends <em>hate </em>Katara.</p><p> </p><p>So…square one.</p><p> </p><p>Privately, Katara almost hopes she’ll get a bit part in the spring production. She <em>loved </em>the fall play – everything about it, rehearsals and sore throat from months of singing and heavy oversized gown and all – and she knows that she can’t bear to give it up. But maybe, she thinks, people would like her a little bit more if she weren’t stealing parts from them. Maybe she’d make friends if she were less…threatening. More like them, a freshman in a bit part. She wouldn’t mind, really wouldn’t, if it meant that she wouldn’t be on the receiving end of as many glares.</p><p> </p><p>But she doesn’t, of course, because she’s endeared herself to the director, Yangchen (a sweetheart – Katara wishes the other students would absorb at least a little bit of Yangchen’s good nature), and the moment the cast list goes up, her heart sinks.</p><p> </p><p>She’d wanted to be an anonymous background character in the spring production of <em>Newsies. </em>She can’t dance, of course, so that was always a long shot, but she’d held out hope. But no. She’s <em>Katherine Plumber. </em></p><p> </p><p>She can already feel the seniors’ eyes boring holes in her back, passed over for the female lead in their last high school show and already raging-mad about it. She hears the whispers almost as soon as the cast list goes up.</p><p> </p><p>And Katara can’t take it anymore, because there are so few people left on her side, so few people who <em>get </em>it. There are so few people who she could tell that she’s devastated to have gotten the most coveted role in a musical. There are so few people-</p><p><br/>Wordlessly, where she’s slumped against the lockers, someone sits beside her. She doesn’t know who it is, their presence only known to her by the clank of locks against locker doors as they sink to the ground. They don’t say anything and then she looks up, blinking tears out of her eyes to clear her vision.</p><p> </p><p>“Zuko?”</p><p> </p><p>“Hi.” His face looks a little red, and she wonders if he’s overheated – she can feel his warmth even from a few inches away.</p><p> </p><p>He doesn’t ask if she’s okay – there’s no reason to ask when it’s obvious. She appreciates that more than she can say.</p><p> </p><p>“I got the lead,” she finds herself telling him.</p><p><br/>“Congrats. Katherine?”</p><p> </p><p>Katara nods. “Everyone’s already mad.”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh.” Zuko averts his eyes. Even for him, it would be hard to miss the looks that the upperclassmen have been giving Katara all year. “They suck.”</p><p> </p><p>“That’s the issue. They <em>don’t </em>suck.” Katara barely cares that she’s crying in front of a near-stranger anymore. “They’re <em>amazing. </em>Better than I am, for sure, and they <em>deserve </em>this, and I’m taking it from them, and they hate me for it.”</p><p> </p><p>He considers for a moment, producing a sandwich from a paper bag sitting at his side, and takes a bite as he thinks.</p><p> </p><p>“I think,” he concludes, “that they’re stupid.”</p><p> </p><p>“What do you mean?”</p><p> </p><p>“You’re…you sing nice.” Zuko shoves another bite of sandwich in his mouth, probably to spare himself the embarrassment of opening it again.</p><p> </p><p>“So do they,” Katara laughs through tears. “But thanks.”</p><p> </p><p>He takes a moment to finish his bite, then shrugs. “It’s just true. You did better than they did at auditions. It’s not like anyone promised them that part, right?”</p><p> </p><p>“I just feel so unworthy,” Katara sighs. “But also so ungrateful. I mean, I have this thing everyone wants, and here I am complaining about it, right?”</p><p> </p><p>“People were jerks last time this happened. It’s natural.”</p><p> </p><p>“You noticed that?”</p><p> </p><p>“Of course I did. What else was I supposed to do? Crew is <em>boring </em>before tech week.”</p><p> </p><p>She giggles. “I guess. Kinda cool to know that you were…I don’t know, looking out for me.”</p><p> </p><p>“I wouldn’t say that,” Zuko says cautiously. “I was just…observing.”</p><p> </p><p>“Still. Most people don’t care enough to observe me.”</p><p> </p><p>“Really? I find that hard to believe.”</p><p> </p><p>“No, seriously. You’re, like…everywhere.”</p><p> </p><p>She feels her face warm. “You…actually think that?”</p><p> </p><p>“It’d be hard to notice.” He knocks her shoulder. “This is Katara’s world, and we’re just living in it.”</p><p> </p><p>“I’m…still sorry.” She has no idea what else to say and it feels as natural as anything to blurt it out. “About, um. About closing night.”</p><p> </p><p>“Huh?”</p><p> </p><p>“The spotlight.” Her face goes even hotter. “I tried to hug you and kinda knocked you into the control panel and your hand hit the spotlight switch and it almost blinded Jin? I’m…I’m sorry.”</p><p> </p><p>“Why are you apologizing for that? It was an accident.” Zuko takes another bite of sandwich, pauses to eat. “Besides, I forgot about that a while ago.”</p><p> </p><p>(This is a lie. Zuko doesn’t think he will <em>ever </em>forget that look they shared across the sound booth. It was, as he has long since decided, the most romantic moment of his life.)</p><p> </p><p>“Um…oh. I’m, um…I’m glad.” Suddenly, Katara is out of words. “Well, um…thank you, then.”</p><p> </p><p>“For what?” he asks, equally baffled by her second question.</p><p> </p><p>She shrugs. “Being there for me.”</p><p> </p><p>“Isn’t everyone?”</p><p> </p><p>“Wouldn’t you think?” she sighs, then rushes to amend her statement when she realizes how that sounds. “I mean, no! Like, um. Sorry, that came out so wrong, but, um…basically, I act like I know everyone and they mostly believe it, but that isn’t the same as, like…” she trails off.</p><p> </p><p>“Being friends with them?” Zuko offers.</p><p> </p><p>“Something like that.”</p><p> </p><p>“Huh. I always got the impression that you were, like…popular.”</p><p> </p><p>“Me? Popular?” Katara almost laughs. The idea seems so absurd. “I’m…no. I know a lot of people, but they don’t exactly like me all that much.”</p><p> </p><p>“Seriously? Why not?”</p><p> </p><p>“Weird, overachieving tryhard with morals. You tell me.” Katara grimaces. “And a theater kid.”</p><p> </p><p>“Theater kids are great.”</p><p> </p><p>“Tell that to the popular crowd.”</p><p> </p><p>“Who even <em>is </em>the popular crowd?” Zuko asks, balling up the foil that had wrapped his sandwich and unsuccessfully attempting to lob it into a trash can on the other side of the hall.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t know, they just…are. The popular crowd, I mean.”</p><p> </p><p>“That makes no sense.” Zuko turns to look at Katara, sizes her up for a second, and adds, “it’s probably a good thing you’re not a debate kid.”</p><p><br/>“Ouch.”</p><p> </p><p>“I’ve been told that I have no filter,” Zuko tells her. “Sorry if I, you know…say stuff. That’s weird. Or rude. Or-“</p><p> </p><p>“Zuko, I got a detention last week for starting an argument with a teacher over the reliability of our AP Human Geography textbook as a source that lasted half of the class period. You tell me who has no filter.”</p><p> </p><p>“<em>You </em>got a detention?”</p><p> </p><p>“No, I started crying in the office and they felt so bad that I didn’t end up getting it.”</p><p> </p><p>“I should try that,” Zuko comments.</p><p>“Highly recommended.”</p><p> </p><p>“I bet.” Zuko grabs his bag – apparently he’d sat down, back against the lockers, with his backpack still on. “Well. Good talk.”</p><p> </p><p>He’s gone almost as quickly as he’d arrived and she chalks his sudden exit up to eccentricity. It doesn’t really surprise her.</p><p><br/>What <em>does </em>surprise her is the way she already misses his company.</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. 10</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I do not like this one at all but I had to get *something* out because it's getting close to Christmas so here we go.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>
    <em>iii. Something to Believe In</em>
  </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>
    
  </strong>
</p><p>“Hey, stranger!”</p><p> </p><p>Zuko braces himself for impact and, true to form, Katara makes landfall seconds later. He can’t see her, but her voice is instantly recognizable after a summer of late-night video calls, and he isn’t surprised that she’s seen fit to greet him this way.</p><p> </p><p>It still doesn’t help him to stay upright when her full weight slams into his back and her arms latch around his waist. He stiffens, and not just because it’s startling – she rests her chin on his shoulder and, for a moment, he doesn’t know what to think.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey yourself,” he mutters, sounding a little more disagreeable than he intends to.</p><p> </p><p>“Hm. Grumpy today, are we?” she teases, finally releasing him. “What else is new?”</p><p> </p><p>“Sorry. Startled,” he explains, because words have never been his friends. “Uh…hi?”</p><p> </p><p>“Auditioning again?” he asks.</p><p> </p><p>“’Course. I love this show,” she says, chipper as ever. She nudges his arm. “Why don’t you give it a try this year?”</p><p> </p><p>“Katara, you know I don’t sing.” He shrugs. “I like booth. I don’t have to talk to anyone and no one can see me.”</p><p> </p><p>Katara <em>tsks </em>disapprovingly. “But you <em>love </em>theater, and you’re so naturally dramatic!”</p><p> </p><p>“Naturally dramatic,” he repeats drily. “Wow. I really don’t know what to say. You flatter me, Katherine.”</p><p> </p><p>“Don’t let anyone hear you calling me that,” Katara teases. “I don’t think anyone is over my playing her last year.”</p><p> </p><p>This is something Zuko has learned about Katara in the past months: the closer they become, the more clearly he can see that she is not one to let go easily. She is a remarkably gracious girl to those who haven’t wronged her, but she remembers slights with an unbending ferocity that frightens even him. She makes light of them eventually but she never quite lets go.</p><p> </p><p>He has a feeling that she still resents those seniors who’d been so quick to cut her with their eyes and their clever barbs when she’d unwittingly taken their spotlight last semester.</p><p> </p><p>“They’re all gone now, Katara,” he says under his breath. “You don’t have to worry about them anymore.”</p><p> </p><p>It’s so unlike Zuko to be comforting that Katara stiffens, but slowly, she relaxes, her face softening until she manages a tiny but genuine smile. “I suppose, but there were the juniors, too.”</p><p> </p><p>“But you’re established now. They know you,” he counters. “So when you get a lead again-“</p><p> </p><p>“<em>If,” </em>Katara corrects. “And that is a huge <em>if.” </em></p><p>
  
</p><p>“<em>When </em>you get the lead again, it won’t surprise anyone.”</p><p> </p><p>Katara folds her arms across her chest and sighs. “It’s nice of you to try, and to have so much confidence in me, but…I don’t think it’s going to be that easy even on the off-chance that I <em>do </em>get a lead again. Just because I was cast in big roles in the last two plays doesn’t mean I always will be.”</p><p> </p><p>“Well, Yangchen likes you. That counts for a lot around here.”</p><p> </p><p>Katara raises an eyebrow. “Do you know that for a fact?”</p><p> </p><p>“I ate lunch in her room every day for six months last year,” he admits, surprised that he isn’t at least a little bit embarrassed to admit that. As they’ve spoken, given one long, boring summer to get to know one another, he’s grown more comfortable around Katara than he’d ever expected to – he <em>knows </em>her, story and struggles and interests and shortcomings and all, and he knows that she knows him just as well. There seems to be little cause for shame anymore, even on the topic of his earlier friendlessness. “I know her pretty well.”</p><p> </p><p>Katara doesn’t say anything for a moment. She ducks her head as if trying not to look at him before finally replying, “well, then, I guess you do know what you’re talking about.”</p><p> </p><p>“She really likes you,” he says. “She talks about you a lot. Says you’re-“</p><p> </p><p>“Keep your voice down!” Katara hisses, motioning to the clusters of people standing around them.</p><p> </p><p>“Right. Sorry.” His voice is barely lower than it was before. “She says you’re…I think ‘refreshing’ was the word she used.”</p><p> </p><p>“Really?”</p><p> </p><p>“Really.” He manages a nervous half-smile, suddenly remembering how much he hates the unfamiliar swoopy sensation in his stomach that always accompanies conversations with Katara. “She thinks you’re great.”</p><p> </p><p>“Refreshing <em>how?”</em></p><p>
  
</p><p>“I don’t know. Just…’refreshing.’”</p><p> </p><p>“Bet you’d be pretty ‘refreshing’ too if you tried out,” she replies, nudging him with her elbow. “Your speaking voice sounds like the kind that would translate well into singing-“</p><p> </p><p>“I forgot how annoyingly persistent you are,” he huffs, because this makes him feel, somehow, the need to back off.</p><p><br/>“I forgot how annoyingly irritable you are when you get compliments,” Katara shoots back, because this, too, is a thing that she already knows about him. She makes no secret of the fact that his temper bothers her on occasion, but she knows to anticipate his flare-ups, too. “And how could you have forgotten that? We talked a week ago.”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, through a screen,” he scoffs. “Not even close to the same.”</p><p> </p><p>“My personality doesn’t change when we talk in person, so I really don’t see how that’s true.”</p><p> </p><p><em>It’s kind of hard not to freak out and start spouting off about whatever pops into my head first when you’re here in person, </em>Zuko wants to point out, but he doesn’t. “I guess,” is all he manages to get out.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah. Exactly.” Then she laughs for no reason at all, elbows his side with a little more force. “It’s good to see you, though.”</p><p> </p><p>“Um. It’s-“</p><p> </p><p>“Katara?”</p><p> </p><p>Kuruk, a Boiling Rock alum and theater graduate student who Yangchen’s been paying a pittance to help out with auditions, appears with his clipboard, and Zuko freezes mid-sentence. “<em>Sorry,” </em>Katara mouths to him before answering, “here!”</p><p> </p><p>“Come on in,” Kuruk tells her, and she follows him into the practice room where Yangchen, their director, is auditioning students. They’ve been able to hear most of the auditions through the door, which isn’t as soundproofed as everyone pretends it is, but haven’t really listened to them; now, though, Zuko strains to hear every note.</p><p><br/>It’s just because Katara is his friend.</p><p> </p><p>It’s just because her voice is, objectively, nice.</p><p> </p><p>It’s just because-</p><p> </p><p><em>It’s just because I’m curious, </em>Zuko insists.</p><p> </p><p>It is not because of any of those things. If he is being truthful, he’s listening intently because there is something entirely enrapturing about her voice, her presence, the way she hits the rafters as she belts out the climax of <em>I Dreamed a Dream </em>behind doors that are supposed to block out the sound but can’t even dream of it. If he’s being truthful, he listens because he can’t <em>not </em>listen.</p><p> </p><p>He doubts anyone who’s in the room to hear that – and nearly <em>everyone </em>involved in the fall semester production of <em>Anastasia </em>is in the room to hear it – is going to be able to complain when she’s inevitably cast in the lead.</p><p> </p><p>(He changes his mind, of course on the inevitability of that casting, because he’s never seen Katara happier than she is when she reads her name next to “Countess Lily Malevsky-Malevitch” on the cast list.)</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>**</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <strong>
    <em>Iv. Breathe</em>
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</p><p>
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</p><p>“Seriously, just try it!”</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t <em>want </em>to.” Zuko throws a glance over to the other side of the booth at Ty Lee, who opted to work sound for the spring musical after a broken foot (a ballet injury, she insists, but a lot of people think she’s saying that to cover for whatever member of the cheerleading squad dropped her out of a stunt) and the notoriously tiny size of <em>A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder’</em>s cast kept her in the wings. He’s known Ty Lee forever – that comes with the territory when someone is friends with Azula – and he likes her just fine, but she can be a bit…</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Much. </em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>Especially during tech week when, even when the cast is receiving notes between run-throughs, he has to be on call at all times in case Yangchen, the director, wants him to do something with the lights. Especially when he’s trying to hear what Yangchen has to say about Katara.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, come on!” Ty Lee pleads, and he finally gives in, if only to get her to leave him alone.</p><p> </p><p>“Fine, but <em>one </em>round, and we have to stop if she wants us to do something.”</p><p><br/>“Sure!” Ty Lee raises both of her hands, fingers extended. “Do you know how to play?”</p><p> </p><p>“Um…I think so?”</p><p> </p><p>“You start with ten fingers,” she instructs him. “Like this.” She wiggles her extended fingers to demonstrate. “And we have to go back and forth, saying things that we haven’t done. And if you’ve done one of the things that I said I hadn’t, you have to put a finger down. Last man standing wins. Got it?”</p><p> </p><p>“I think so,” Zuko sighs, because he <em>does </em>but he’d really rather not be doing this at all. Even listening to the boy cast as the show’s titular <em>Gentleman, </em>whom Zuko has decided sounds more like a frog than any actor who’s ever portrayed Montague D’ysquith-Navarro onstage, seems preferable, really, to spilling his deepest, darkest secrets to his sister’s friend in the darkened booth.</p><p> </p><p>It’s not like he has that option, though, so he acquiesces.</p><p> </p><p>“I’ll start,” Ty Lee says. “Okay…never have I ever worn head-to-toe black.” <br/><br/>Zuko heaves a long-suffering sigh and folds down his right thumb. Ty Lee grins triumphantly – she had to have known that would do the trick – and suddenly he’s <em>invested, </em>because he really cannot lose like <em>that.</em>“Never have I ever kissed anyone,” he challenges, because Ty Lee absolutely <em>pulls, </em>even as a sophomore,and Zuko decidedly does <em>not. </em>That’ll even the score.</p><p> </p><p>She frowns, puts down a finger, and counters, “never have I ever been in crew before this semester.”</p><p> </p><p>“Okay, that <em>has </em>to be cheating!”</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, anything goes!” she argues, grinning when Zuko has to put down another finger.</p><p> </p><p>“Never have I ever had more than one sister,” he offers. Finger down – he’s ahead again.</p><p> </p><p>“Never have I ever gotten a detention.”</p><p> </p><p>“Uh, you definitely have.” Zuko shakes his head. “I can’t believe that you’ve <em>actually </em>never gotten one for being late.”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, no, my teachers never give me those. I just cry and they let me off the hook,” she giggles. “So it’s still fair game.”</p><p> </p><p>Zuko has his fair share of detention stories that he’d rather not retell – another finger down. “Never have I ever been inside a nail salon,” he says, because Ty Lee loves very few things in life more than her acrylics.</p><p> </p><p>“Really? That’s so <em>sad,” </em>Ty Lee says as only an obscenely rich girl with a nail-care addiction could. “I should totally take you sometime!”</p><p> </p><p>“I’m okay.”</p><p> </p><p>“Hmm…if you say so.” She thinks for a minute. “Never have I ever gotten an A in math.”</p><p> </p><p>“Never have I ever been in love with a member of your friend group,” Zuko says, because it’s a poorly-kept secret that Ty Lee, at one point or another, has been in love with both of them.</p><p><br/>“But you and Mai-“</p><p> </p><p>“That,” he says with a grimace, “was <em>not </em>love.”</p><p> </p><p><em>That, </em>he thinks, <em>was me being an antisocial freshman desperate for a date to homecoming. </em>He doesn’t say so, though.</p><p> </p><p>“Hm. Interesting.” Ty Lee looks like she’s filing that information away for future reference. “Never have I ever gotten into a fight.”</p><p><br/>“I’ve never gotten into a <em>physical </em>fight-“</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, but you’ve gotten into every other kind of fight there is, so I’m gonna count it.” Ty Lee shrugs.</p><p> </p><p>“You realize that there’s no way either of us are going to win this if we keep asking these super specific questions, right?”</p><p> </p><p>“But that’s the fun part!”</p><p> </p><p>“No, the fun part is <em>winning.” </em></p><p>
  
</p><p>“You sound like your sister.”</p><p> </p><p>“Well, maybe she’s right sometimes.” He pauses to think. “About one-sixteenth of the time, but that’s still ‘sometimes.’ Anyways. Never have I ever had a cavity.”</p><p> </p><p>“Same here,” Ty Lee replies. “Never have I ever ridden a Vespa.”</p><p> </p><p>“Okay, I was trying to go easy on you, and you hit me with <em>that?” </em>Zuko throws up his hands. “<em>Seriously?” </em></p><p>
  
</p><p>“It just popped into my head!” Ty Lee protests. “I mean, everybody saw your uncle pick you up on his Vespa that one day-“</p><p> </p><p>“And I have spent a year and a half wishing that they would forget they ever saw that, so <em>seriously?” </em></p><p>
  
</p><p>“It was <em>cute!” </em></p><p>
  
</p><p>“It was not cute, Ty Lee. <em>It was not cute.” </em></p><p>
  
</p><p>“Whatever,” she giggles. “You still have to put a finger down.”</p><p> </p><p>“Never have I ever owned anything pink.” If she’s not going to be magnanimous, there’s no reason that he should be, either.</p><p> </p><p>“Never have I ever taken an honors class.”</p><p><br/>“Never have I taken <em>French.” </em>He practically spits the last word, because he’s pretty sure that French has to be the dumbest language mankind has ever managed to devise and he cannot for the life of him understand why everyone doesn’t just take something useful (Mandarin) or aesthetically pleasing (Latin) instead.</p><p> </p><p>“You’d probably get more girls if you spoke French,” she counters, which he can’t deny but doesn’t particularly care to. She has six fingers down to his seven, and he doesn’t appreciate it. “Never have I ever eaten sushi.”</p><p> </p><p>“You’re kidding.”</p><p> </p><p>“Nope!”</p><p> </p><p>“I actually cannot believe that.”</p><p> </p><p>“Well, I haven’t.”</p><p> </p><p>“Fine, then. Never have I ever drank…en? Drunk? Drinked? What’s the past tense of drink? Anyway. Never have I ever drank…I think…? Never have I ever drank boba.”</p><p> </p><p>Ty Lee pouts because she’s almost never seen without one: usually she has a very conspicuous latte in her obscenely large pink Starbucks cup in the morning, and a milk tea in the afternoon. “How is that possible?”</p><p> </p><p>“Because it looks weird and I refuse to try something that gets that much undeserved hype,” he says. She has seven fingers down, but he’s at eight, so he still can’t win unless she picks something he hasn’t done either.</p><p> </p><p>“Hm. Sad. Uh…never have I ever played a team sport?”</p><p> </p><p>“Yes, you have.”</p><p> </p><p>“Cheer doesn’t count.”</p><p> </p><p>“Fine, then.” Zuko smirks. “Neither have I.”</p><p> </p><p>“Wait, I <em>swear </em>you played kiddie soccer with Azula when we were in first grade!”</p><p> </p><p>“Doesn’t count.”</p><p> </p><p>“Does too!”</p><p> </p><p>“Doesn’t.” He doesn’t put a finger down. “Never have I ever cried at school.”</p><p> </p><p><em>Eight down. </em>They’re tied now.</p><p> </p><p>“Never have I ever let my phone die.”</p><p> </p><p>“Neither have I.”</p><p> </p><p>Ty Lee bites her lip in concentration. “Hmm…never have I ever eaten a whole watermelon in one sitting.”</p><p> </p><p>“That was <em>one time!” </em></p><p>
  
</p><p>“Still happened, though.”</p><p> </p><p>“Okay, fine. Never have I ever been crowd-surfed at homecoming.”</p><p> </p><p>“Okay, I’m not even going to lie, that was <em>great.” </em>Ty Lee doesn’t even seem to mind that she’s had to put her ninth finger down. “Never have I ever faked food poisoning to get out of school.”</p><p> </p><p>“That was pretty genius, you have to admit.”</p><p> </p><p>“Says mister all-honors-classes,” Ty Lee teases.</p><p> </p><p>“Never have I ever worn a pointe shoe,” Zuko says, because those things terrify him and he doesn’t understand how Ty Lee puts up with them.</p><p> </p><p>“Hmph.” She lowers her last finger. “I had a really good one that I wanted to use on you.”</p><p> </p><p>“Which was?” Zuko is surprised to find himself curious to know what she was planning to say before he beat her.</p><p> </p><p>“Never have I ever had a crush on someone in the cast.”</p><p> </p><p>“That has to be a lie,” Zuko says before he gets the insinuation and his face grows warm. “And I haven’t, either-“</p><p> </p><p>“Liar.”</p><p> </p><p>“I <em>haven’t!” </em></p><p>
  
</p><p>“Then why did you have one eye on Katara that <em>entire </em>game?”</p><p> </p><p>“I didn’t.”</p><p> </p><p>“I can see what you’re looking at, Zuko. You did.”</p><p> </p><p>“I didn’t and I don’t.”</p><p> </p><p>“Really? I’m surprised.” Ty Lee leans in conspiratorially. “Because she <em>definitely </em>likes you.”</p><p> </p><p>“<em>What?” </em></p><p>
  
</p><p>“Just saying,” Ty Lee says, and it’s all she manages to get out before Yangchen calls back to the booth to cut the lights before the next run-through.</p><p> </p><p>Zuko has a feeling he’s going to spend the rest of tech week stewing over that one.</p>
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